Negotiating funding for drugs with local health authorities prior to commercialisation is the key to success for biopharmas working in the changing European market, says Quintiles.

The firm recently launched a briefing paper, which looks at market access strategies and how they can help biopharmaceutical firms dodge the risks creating by the fragmented industry across the continent.

Quintiles published the report in the wake of discussions in all over Europe about value-based pricing for drugs - where the medicine is priced based on its need in the local area.

Speaking to Outsourcing-Pharma.com, the paper’s author Gareth Williams - UK market access director – said the key thing to consider in the face of the changes is collecting outcomes data to “understand the fabric of local health authorities”, and what is important to them.

And for many firms, the easiest way to work closely with the local authorities in the “fragmented” European healthcare systems is outsourcing.

However, he told us that not all firms will outsource, and that service providers will probably see the biggest influx from biopharma’s with less consistent pipelines. In other words, not from Big Pharma which is likely to have staff on the ground.

“I think the biggest predictor of whether a company will outsource is depending on their pipeline coming through,” he said. “It’s quite an expensive resource to have if you don’t have a consistent pipeline of those products coming through once every 12 months.”

The cost of success

Of added costs to working with providers who specialise in the individual markets and systems, Williams said biopharmas need not worry.

He said: “If the reason you’re collecting outcomes data is to help inform subsequent years’ budget then you could displace how you currently promote the medicine and use the budget set aside for that for outcomes data instead.

"As Europe moves to wards value based pricing I think that is more and more important."

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